COACHING STAFF Robert Cannon (Long Jump & Triple Jump)
Tony Ciarelli (Shot, Discus, Javelin)
Tony started his track & field coaching career in 1979 at Damien High School in Hawaii. He moved to Edison H.S. in Huntington Beach, CA in 1982, where he also coached football and weightlifting. He moved to Newport Harbor High School in 1989, then to Huntington Beach H.S. in 1997, then back to Newport Harbor in 2005—where he continues to coach the throws, football, and weightlifting. High school champions that Tony has produced include seven 60-ft shot putters, six 180-ft discus throwers, including Scott Moser (213' 11") and Bo Taylor (213' 8")—the #1 and #2 prep discus throwers in California history. In total, he has coached 34 State Meet finalists, 3 State Champions, 5 National Scholastic Meet Champions, 2 Golden West Meet Champions, and 5 High School All America performers. In weightlifting, he has coached 35 qualifiers for the U.S. Junior Championships, seven (7) National Junior Champions, and two (2) National Junior record holders. His daughter Maryn was the 2006 National Collegiate Weightlifting Champion and his daughter Katelyn, (a member of VSA) was a 2-time Big West Champion and NCAA Championships qualifier in the discus while at Long Beach State. Nick Garcia (Throws)
Cedric Hill (Sprints & Hurdles)
Damian Jelks (Special Assistant to the Executive Director)
Jan Johnson (Pole Vault)
Hank Kraychir (Hammer Throw)
Ed Luna (Jumps)
From 1985-1991, Ed was head track coach at Rubidoux H.S., where his boys and girls teams won 187 of 220 league dual meets, ten Riverside City Track & Field Championships, and 15 Citrus Belt League titles. In 1991, his Rubidoux boys team placed 2nd in the CIF Southern Section Championships. An exceptional jumps coach, while at Rubidoux he developed nine 23-foot long jumpers, ten 47-foot triple jumpers, five high jumpers who scaled 6’ 8” or better, and school record holders at 24’ 10”, 50’ 2”, and 7’ ¼” respectively. Ed also served as director of the Inland Empire Track & Field Championships and of the Clinic of Champions for ten years. Since 1992, he has been a featured speaker for the LA’84 Foundation’s Track & Field Coaching Program, lectured across the United States, and written numerous articles for various track & field coaching publications. Ed joined the UC Riverside Track & Field Coach Staff in 1995 and served as meet manager when UCR hosted the 1996 NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships. In 2002 when UCR completed the transition to NCAA Division-I, Ed had the first UCR athlete to qualify for the Division-I National Championships in Jeff Midgett—a freshmen high jumper with a high school PR of 6’ 8” who jumped 7’ 2 ¼”/2.19m. In Ed’s tenure at UCR, he had 7 NCAA National Qualifiers and 35 Big West Conference men and women scorers in the jumps. In 2003 when he helped Zikarra Beverly win the conference long jump title, she became the first UCR athlete to win a Big West individual event. In 2007-08, Ed also helped Allison Wilder improve her best over 3-feet in the triple jump to qualify for the NCAA West Regional Championships. In total, while at UC Riverside his women broke every indoor/outdoor school record in the jumps, while his men broke the school long jump and triple records indoors, and the high jump and triple jump records outdoors. Kendra Reimer (Multi-events)
In 2008, Kendra became an assistant coach at Cal State Los Angeles specializing in the multi-events, throws and the pole vault. In 2008, she helped Desi Burt become the NCAA Division II West Region “Athlete of the Year”. Now a member of the VS Athletics Track Club, Desi not only qualified for the NCAA Championships in the decathlon and high jump, he won CCAA conference titles in 3 events: the high jump, long jump and the 110m hurdles. In 2008, Kendra was also one of the few multi-event coaches in America to have two 7000-point decathletes—the other being Cal State LA’s Julian Gonzales at 7098 points. She also coached Shianne Smith, who was named the CCAA Conference “Newcomer of the Year” after finishing 2nd in the 100 and 200, and 4th in the heptathlon. Shianne also set the Bermuda National Record in the Heptathlon in 2008 and qualified for the NACAC Under-23 Championships and the CAC Senior Championships. Dave Rodda (Jumps & Multi-Events)
Skip Stolley (Middle & Long Distances) Skip has coached 24 Olympic Trials qualifiers, more than 50 qualifiers for the USA Track & Field Championships, and cross country teams that have placed among the top-3 at the USA Championships six times and won national titles in 1994 and '97. He has written more than 50 articles for various coaching journals and running publications and been featured as a guest speaker at coaching clinics in 18-states. For the past 20-years, he has also served as meet director for the annual Southern California USATF Cross Country and Track & Field Championships, Summer Grand Prix Series, and numerous high performance meets that have served as final qualifying or tune-up meets for the USA Championships and Olympic Trials. Skip holds executive committee positions within both USA Track & Field and the U.S. Track Coaches Association and has been selected as a coach for five USA National Teams. In 1999, he was recognized by USA Track & Field as Cross Country Coach-of-the-Year. In 2000, he received USA Track & Field’s “Outstanding Contributor” award. Recently, he was named Head USA Men’s Coach for the 2009 Junior Pan American Games. He is listed in the Heritage Registration of “Who’s Who in America” in the category of Amateur Sports. Brian Yokoyama (Pole Vault)
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A 7-time Big Ten Conference Champion in the long jump and triple jump, while at Indiana University Robert improved his triple jump PR more than 10-feet (!!) and held Indiana’s indoor/outdoor school records in the triple jump for 25-years. He a 5-time NCAA All-America performer and won the 1979 NCAA Triple Jump crown and prestigious Balfour Award. As a post-collegian, Robert won the 1982 U.S. triple jump title and was a member of numerous USA Teams, including the 1981 World University Games Team, 1988 U.S. Olympic Team, and 1991 Pan American Games Team. With PRs of 25’ 10” (7.87m) and 57’ 10¼” (17.63), he ranked among America’s top-10 triple jumpers for 18-years (1978-1996)—an incredible accomplishment for a field event specialist. Robert lives in Long Beach and has worked for Toyota since 1990 where he is a Systems Planning Administrator.
Cedric is a Level-II USATF certified Sprints/Hurdles Coach and former assistant coach at Cal State Los Angeles and Cal State Dominguez Hills. An All-Army sprinter and World Football League player, he worked with 1996 Olympic Gold Medalist Derrick Adkins and 2000 Olympic Semi-Finalist Louise Ayetotche (Ivory Coast). At the NCAA level, he has coached twenty-two All-Americas and six NCAA Division-II National Champions, including 2002 Honda Award Winner and 2002-03 NCAA Div-II Female Athlete of the Year, Nicole Duncan. In 2008 at the USATF National Club Championships, his VSA women scored 42 points en route to a 2nd place team finish and Ben Clark won the Men’s 400m Hurdles. 
Damian is a former 1:52 800m runner and junior college assistant. He now serves as Special Assistant to Executive Director Skip Stolley while training with the VS Athletics Track Club. “Damian is making a valuable behind the scenes contribution by promoting our Club throughout Southern California to collegiate coaches and their most promising seniors and alumni athletes. He received an A.A. degree from Long Beach City College, a B.A. from Cal State Fullerton, and is currently enrolled in a Masters degree program at Long Beach State. After a 13-year hiatus from competition, in 2007 he began running with the VSA middle distance training group. “Our VS coaches are so busy with coaching and other professional activities, Damian is helping us fulfill the critical need to promote the VS Athletics Track Club and its mission to the collegiate track & field community, notes Skip, and is a great addition to our team.”
Jan Johnson may be America’s preeminent Pole Vault Coach. He was the first Illinois prep pole vaulter to scale 15-feet while attending Bloom High School in Chicago Heights and is a member of the Illinois High School, University of Kansas, University of Alabama, and National Pole Vault Halls-of-Fame. While at Kansas, he set a pole vault world indoor record of 17’ 7” and was the 1971 Pan American Games Champion. While attending Alabama, he won 3 NCAA Championships, 2 U.S. titles, and was a bronze medalist at the 1972 Olympic Games. After retiring as an athlete, Jan coached at LSU, Southern Illinois, and Cal Poly SLO before founding the Sky Jumpers Vertical Sports Club based in Atascadero, CA. As a pole vault coach and producer of pole vault camps, coaching clinics, and instructional videos, Jan has no peer. More than 30,000 coaches and vaulters have attended his Sky Jumpers camps since 1973, and he has produced and sold more than 50,000 pole vault instructional videos. Perhaps even more important, no one has done more to enhance the safety of the pole vault. Jan was the first person to develop product performance standards for manufacturing pole vault equipment, and he created, and continues to chair, the USATF Pole Vault Safety Task Force. In 2002, he developed a national on-line curriculum for the education, testing, and certification of pole vault coaches. In 2005, he received the Southern California Track & Field Lifetime Achievement Award. Jan’s daughter, Chelsea, was a 3-time PAC-10 Conference and NCAA Champion and school record-holder at 15’ 1” (4.60m) while at UCLA and, in 2008, was a Olympic Trials finalist.
The four Kraychir hammer throwers, Casey, Katie, Trent, and Trevor, are coached by their father, Hank Kraychir, who has 34 years of experience in the throws. After winning the California State High School title in the Discus in 1979, by 1982 he had improved his personal best in the Shot Put to 65' 4" in route to winning the California State Junior College Shot and Discus titles. After receiving a scholarship to USC, Hank went on to be a 4-time All-American performer in the shot put and discus and still ranks #3 in the shot and #2 in the discus on the Trojans’ All-Time Performance Lists. He has also recorded the furthest ambidextrous shot put and discus throws of all time…throwing the shot 67' 5”-right handed and 59'2"-left handed (total 126'7"), and the discus 203' 8"-right handed and 172'-left handed (total 375'8"). As a coach, Hank helped Long Beach City College win three State team Championships and later, in a 4-year stint at Mt. SAC, he helped the Mounties win three state team titles as well. In total, he produced 10 State JC Champions in the throws. Hank is now retired and has written USC Athletic Stories, Volume I & II, with production of Volume III in the works. He has been married to his wife Debbie for 23-years, and currently lives in Twentynine Palms, California. 
Ed Luna is the athletic director at Rubidoux High School in Riverside and was an assistant coach for the jumps at UC-Riverside from 1995-2008. He graduated from Cal State Northridge in 1983 with a degree in Physical Education/Kinesiology and received a master’s degree in Education with an emphasis on Coaching from Azusa Pacific University in 1988.
Kendra Reimer (pronounced RIME-er) set a national high school record of 5,493 points in the heptathlon and was a 3-time state qualifier in three events while at New Braunfels High School in Texas. In 1998, she was runner-up in the voting for 1998 High School Athlete of the Year. After being the National Junior Heptathlon Champion and placing seventh at the 1998 World Junior Championships in Annecy, France, Kendra went on to compete at Texas A&M University where she was one of the nation’s top collegiate heptathletes and earned multiple All-America honors. In 2004, she moved to Southern California where she scored a PR 5631 points and placed 11th in the heptathlon at the 2004 Olympic Trials. 
